Mourdock accepts rape

Congratulations, Hoosiers have their very own Todd Akin.

During Tuesday night’s senatorial debate, Republican State Treasurer Richard Mourdock one-upped the Missouri congressman’s infamous “legitimate rape” comment with some substantive ignorance of his very own.

“I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God,” he said. “And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is trying to distance himself from this outrageous statement, especially after he recently endorsed Mourdock for the U.S. Senate.

Mourdock himself is eager to refute the statement, rejecting the accusation he believes God ordains rape as “not even close” to what he said.

It is, though. What he said is as awful as it seems. Mourdock can’t back off now and claim he only believes God intended the pregnancy, not the rape. In this case, there would be no pregnancy but for the rape.

He is accepting rape. He is denying women’s personhood.

This is what it means to deny abortion rights. This is what it means to imply the inevitability of rape. This is what it means to legislate against women.

For Mourdock to suggest that he is the one struggling with thinking through rape is audacious. Who is he to call the shots here?

The danger is to think Mourdock is something like an extremist. This is more akin to a “47 percent” comment that reveals underlying principles. In this case, it’s the acceptance of violence against women.

Democratic candidate U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-2nd District, is attacking his opponent for the comment, but his own anti-women policy is nothing to be proud of.
Both Donnelly and Mourdock oppose abortion except in special cases — both support abortion when the mother’s life is threatened, and Donnelly also supports it in cases of rape and incest.

This approach to abortion rights reveals a fundamental unwillingness to value women’s bodily autonomy over misogynistic religious beliefs.

In a state that tried to defund Planned Parenthood for providing access to abortion, these attitudes are particularly dangerous.

Neither of the two frontrunners is an ideal candidate, and even the Libertarian is anti-abortion, but only one conflated rape with divine intervention. It’s probably worth a formal gesture to vote for the other two or at least spread the word about Mourdock’s open avowal of rape culture.

I don’t think there’s a GOP war on women. I think there’s a non-partisan war on women. Republican candidates need to take a page from President Barack Obama’s drone war and stop fighting out in the open.

­— ptbeane@indiana.edu